Indegatus. “Ask him, with grateful thanks, his name, and from whence he came?”
Gnipho. (Laughing.) “He says his name is Giganteo, the Dosch or patriarch of the Manatitlans, a race of animalculans whose country lies six hundred stadia to the southeast of the deserted city of Heraclea.”
Indegatus. “Ask him how he proposes to help us?”
Gnipho. “He says by adding to your knowledge, in a privileged way that enables the small to help the great! He expresses a wish for us to retire with him to the parapet steps of the northern wall, where we shall be comparatively free from the shrill vibrations of the cicada’s winged notes.”
Indegatus. “We will move as he directs.”
Gnipho. “Now that we have complied with his request, he charges me to listen, and treasure all that I hear, that I may repeat it to you.”
Indegatus. “We will keep silence that your attention may not be distracted.”
After an hour’s close attention, Gnipho rehearsed to his father and brother, The Admonitory Request of Giganteo, Dosch of Manatitla. “Your ancestors of old Heraclea trained falcons for hunting, and through their borrowed use the Manatitlans obtained a knowledge of giga and animalculan nations beyond the ocean. We wished to recompense the service by imparting the source of our happiness to the people of Heraclea in return. But tyrannous ingratitude had so blunted affectionate sympathy, that your immediate ancestors alone listened to our warnings. But even they would have shared the common fate, if we had not found among the slaves those capable of judging between the good and evil. The majority of the enslaved were as relentless, as the doomed were blind to their impending fate. They had determined that none of their hated oppressors of either city should be spared; but the Manatitlans through the same means that I propose to offer for your aid, foiled the deadly intention of the slaves. While the old Heracleans were reveling in the height of their prosperity, falconry, as with all the pontine races coeval with their transatlantic progenitors, was their favorite pastime. Aeriolus, a worthy successor of Buzzee, visited the mews of old Heraclea, and with equally well devised skill in preparation, conceived the idea of utilizing the swift flight of the falcons and powers of abstinent endurance for crossing the ocean, the shores of which he had visited with the limited powers of the bee volant. Adventuring, with associate volantaphs, trials for their control in hunting, he soon perfected guiding attachments as efficient for directing their movements in flight as those devised for the bee. Selecting the swiftest and strongest he gradually accustomed them to long sustained flights over the ocean, insuring their welcome back to the mews by increased docility—under direction—to the will and lures of the falconer, when in the field. The anticipated difficulties from opposing wind currents, and means of obtaining food sustenance, and disposing of it while in flight, had been successfully overcome by prolonged observations verified with tests. Food was obtained by directing the falcons’ attention to flying fish as objects of prey, which, with parachute aid, they were able, after a little practice under the stimulus of hunger, to devour in mid air.
“In memorial of his success Aeriolus gives in testimony the transcribed after observation. ‘The transition from meat to fish, for a “fasting” flight of instinct, was adopted with far greater avidity than in human acts of ritualistic conformity to mythical injunctions, which we have seen practiced by the sectarian devotees to creeds, as negative compensations for over indulgence of the carnal affections.’
“When the arrangements of Aeriolus were fully perfected, he and thirty associates, with their wives, bade a hopeful farewell to the people of Manatitla, and started from the lochia (plaza) of Maniculæ upon their adventurous air voyage of discovery, with a leading falcon and three followers. Studying to aid the falcons by every possible means they, to their joyful surprise, discovered land on the morning of the fourth day from the start, and, at an early hour thereafter, alighted upon the lofty peak of an island mountain, since known as the Corcovado, a mountain summit of Corvo, one of the Azorean Isles. After regaling the falcons in relief from their lenten diet, they, of their own accord, continued their flight to the mainland. Our joy was much depressed, while passing over the beautiful land scenes, by the fierce cries of giga hosts engaged in battle encounter. In our course eastward, to a country of colored races resembling the aboriginals of our own, not a day passed without our forced observation of a battle scene, with fields and smoking ruins that bespoke the devastation of warful rage.